Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes, was a leading member of the colonial Brazilian revolutionary movement known as Inconfidência Mineira, whose aim was full independence from Portuguese colonial rule and creation of a republic. When the separatists' plot was uncovered by authorities, Tiradentes was arrested, tried and publicly hanged.
Tiradentes in uniform of alferes, by José Wasth Rodrigues (1940). No contemporary portraits or physical descriptions of Tiradentes are known
Ruins of the Fazenda do Pombal, in the present municipality of Ritápolis.
Statue of Tiradentes, patron of the military police in Minas Gerais.
Sentence pronounced against Tiradentes, 1792.
Inconfidência Mineira was an unsuccessful separatist movement in Brazil in 1789. It was the result of a confluence of external and internal causes in what was then colonial Brazil. The external inspiration was the independence of thirteen British colonies in North America following the American Revolutionary War, a development that impressed the intellectual elite of particularly the captaincy of Minas Gerais.
The conspirators
Response of Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes, to the commutation of the rebels' punishment
Image: Figueiredo MHN Tiradentes
Image: Tiradentes quartered (Tiradentes escuartejado) by Pedro Américo 1893